A weekend in pictures

This weekend I was in London. I have to confess that it was not for the protest (go protesters!, though – you looked a friendly and determined lot), I was doing other things. Things like, admiring this bizarre building

I think I might go for this effect on our pebbledash, what do you think? Perhaps with guinea pigs instead for additional sophistication?

As we walked from behind Euston to Camden Town. Behind Euston to Camden Town is not, shall we say, the most drop-dead glamorous walk in London so I think it is an excellent idea that on the way there is a building featuring cats with huge bristling whiskers to cheer everything up a bit.

Admiring graffiti around Camden Lock.

I can never tell what the words say so if it is obscene I am very sorry

It almost makes me want to go and get some enamel paints and Pimp My Punto. I love graffiti.

Thinking about how one of my favourite walks is from Tottenham Court Road through Soho to Regent Street early (well, I say early) on Saturday mornings, when everything is still up in the air from Friday night.

Everything quiet and early

I think I like it because it makes me feel like I am up earlier than everybody else, even though I’m not. And drooling over the fabric in the shops on Berwick Street.

I take photos secretly and indeed should perhaps work for The News Of The World

If you’re in the area it’s definitely worth a look. The fabric is pretty £££, but really pretty if you’re after something special. I tried to get them to let me take photos of the stock in Cloth House (the one on the right), because they had some truly beautiful things, but they wouldn’t let me. I suppose they need to protect themselves from people like me rushing home and using the photographs to recreate complex textural velvet which I might then sell on Cambridge market and undercut them (this is irony). Anyway, go and see for yourself. They have some – ruched velvet! – that’s unlike ruched velvet you’ve ever seen, double-layer white cotton where one layer has holes artfully ripped in it, fabric in gathered tiers, honestly, it’s marvellous. And if you’re a student you get a 10% discount. I myself am currently only a student of Life so no discount for me tant pis. The shop across the road had tie silks for £15 a metre – before you suck your teeth, that’s only about £25 for an a-line summer skirt better than anything anyone else will have.

Buying up silk scarves to reconstruct in Beyond Retro.

All you crocheters, you could make that waistcoat in an evening

Is the vintage shop just off Brick Lane Beyond Retro as well? I can’t remember. Anyway the big one off Brick Lane has a cat who sleeps in the silk scarf box, so if you want to buy the scarves and kitty’s asleep, well, too bad so sad for you, honeybunch.

Admiring cushions

Intarsia cushion from Penny Burdett in Camden Lock/ Needlepoint cushions in Liberty. Partner was concerned I would get mixed up with the protest and kettled on my woolbuying excursions, I said, if they try to kettle me in Liberty's wool department that will essentially be the end of the rule of law

I have this hankering to go into Liberty and spend a fortune on a needlepoint cushion kit. Sometimes with craft, what I want is all the materials in one handy package and instructions that tell me exactly what to do. Then I shake myself down and go and make quilts from scratch again. I shall crack one day though.

And finally, looking at the signs of Spring

When magnolias do their thing they are very pretty, but they do their thing very briefly, so I am never sure how good value they are in a strictly utilitarian sense

surrounding Gandhi in Tavistock Square, and bringing the flowers out on a magnolia tree in St Giles-in-the-Fields, just on the way to Foyles bookshop and at the end of the street with all the guitar shops on it.

I hope you all had a nice weekend too x